How Vinyl Records Are Made (with Third Man Records)

[upbeat music]

[Narrator] Today, we're going to take you step by step

through the vinyl record making process,

from cutting the record, to pressing the record,

to making sure the sound and quality are good.

First, the lacquer coat.

Most records you've heard have been done on lacquer.

There is one company in the world

that makes the lacquers that we use.

It's called MDC.

They're in Japan.

It's basically the same as nail polish,

but it hasn't fully hardened yet.

The lathe is the machine that cuts the lacquer.

This one is a 1974 VMS70.

They stopped making them in 1980.

The stylus cuts the lacquer.

It takes about two and a half hours to cut a record.

The excess, called the hot chip, collects at the bottom.

The programmer is also an important part of the lathe.

It holds all the details of cutting a 12-inch 33,

12-inch 45, or seven-inch 45, or even a 10-inch.

It programs where the drop is

and where the run out groove goes.

A 12-inch record has about 19 minutes of songs per side.

That equals about, on average, 300 to 400 lines per inch

with small grooves per side.

The grooves create a sound as the stylus

moves back and forth and up and down, creating vibrations.

There's 127 things that can go wrong.

If it's too hot while it's cutting, it burns the lacquer

and falls on the lacquer and makes a noise.

If it's too cold, it's not able to dig or cut through

the lacquer well enough, and you get noise from it

just trying to push its way through.

So we're simultaneously heating it, and then we also have

the helium to make sure it doesn't overheat.

And because the lacquer is delicate,

it's affected by heat, humidity, temperature,

cat hair, greasy chicken fingers,

so you can't blow on it to clean it,

which is why we have the nitrogen.

We need to make sure the lacquer stays clean

during the cutting.

We use nitrogen to clean the lacquer,

and we use methyl ethyl ketone to keep the stylus clean.

So the record is finished, it goes around twice,

makes a locked groove, and pops up,

and you wheel it over here, clean it immediately.

We bring the etching platform over here,

and I etch in the matrix number by hand,

which is very small and very difficult.

So on this one, the matrix number is 1996.

This is sign A.

I do a TMM for Third Man Mastering,

TMP for Third Man Platings.

I used to put my initials, W.M.D.,

and someone was like, that's a little bit weird,

so now I just abbreviate my name to WAR.

And that is a finished record.

Once Warren is done mastering,

we send the docker off to be turned into a stamper

so we can manufacture records.

This process is called electroplating

and it's done at an outside facility.

The process of electroplating entails covering the lacquer

in silver nitrate and dipping it into a nickel bath.

The stamper is a reverse image of the lacquer.

Once we get the stamper back, we conduct test pressing

and a quality check to make sure

that the record sounds good.

Every time they have to change the stamper,

they go through a very stringent cleaning process.

They clean the surface of the mold meticulously

to make sure there's no dust,

because it'll actually transfer through this.

These things are not much more than three, four mils thick.

So if you have like even a little bit of rust or dent,

like, resin, under the stamper itself,

it'll show through in a visual non-conformance

and actually can have playback issues on it.

Once we have the artist's approval on the test pressing,

we're good to go into production.

[upbeat music]

First, we prep the labels and dial up the extruder.

The extruder gives us about 200 grams of vinyl grade PVC,

or polyvinyl chloride, that we place into the press.

The pressing process itself is only about 45 seconds long.

[Speaker] The puck is very hot, around 300 degrees.

When it's set into the pressing chamber,

high-pressure steam is being delivered into that mold.

[Speaker] All of the steam and chilled water

pass through the side of the mold first, and then travel

to the outside, so as it's going under pressure,

it's causing the material to flow from the inside out.

[Speaker] Your hydraulics will kick in to press

that material and spread it out in the mold evenly

and kind of hold it in place for a second

while it's still heated.

And then chilled water is introduced in there

to cool the mold off and lock in the shape,

so that when it's removed, flashing can be trimmed off

of the edges there.

The general rule is after around a thousand hits,

you should be looking at any audio deterioration

at that point, so paying closer attention to that,

and our operators know on their counter on their press

where they're getting to.

But you know, when the records are coming out

and there's no divots and there's no flareups of any kind,

it's kind of cool, you know?

Can't argue with something that sounds good.

[Speaker] We press any color you can imagine.

All kinds of customs, splits, and eclipses,

and all kinds of new concentrates inside of color bases,

but nothing really sounds as good as black.

The different colors of PVC melt at different temperatures.

We need to set the machines to specific temperatures,

depending on the color.

For example, oranges and clears need to be run

at cooler temperatures because they're much softer.

Once the record comes out of the press,

we do a quick visual inspection.

We look at the flatness and label orientation initially.

Once we finish the visual inspection,

we send it to an audio quality control check.

Audio issues that we're going to identify,

things like swishy noise, for example, that could be

just an issue with the material and how it was pressed,

or it could be a problem built into the stamper.

There is another thing that we refer to as stitching

or no fill, where the material is not filling

all of the grooves of the stamper, and then when it

comes off, some of that material is just missing.

Once we listen to the record,

we may also inspect the grooves.

Occasionally, we'll find a record that, when it's on

the turntable, the stylists will kind of waver a little bit.

That can have an effect on the audio,

depending on the frequencies and things like that

that can kind alter.

So when we see the needle wander a little bit,

we'll take it and put it onto a microscope

and do a measurement of how bad is the wavering,

how far off does it go from center, and can actually

set up a measurement as the record is rotating,

and then he knows there's a certain number

that we want to stay within.

If anything is wrong, we can do a variety of things.

Namely, checking the settings at the press

and with the press operator.

If the record looks good,

we will do the final step in the process.

We place it on the spindle to let the vinyl flatten,

then label, pack, and prepare the vinyl for shipping.

[upbeat music]

[Speaker] Vinyl is in the real world.

It's not something that exists only on your computer

or your phone, it's three-dimensional.

Your nervous system is designed to take in the sound.

It heals you.

It's a nutrient.

It's like vitamins.

You feel it.

It's like getting a massage or eating a beautiful sandwich.